No Response from Editors and Agents

I submit short stories to magazine editors with the vague hope they’ll accept my work. I have hope until my story is rejected (hope turns to shock/surprise when accepted). I have the same hope when I query an agent for my young adult novel (there’s no acceptance, yet).

The worse part of submitting a story or a query is the “no response” position editors and agents take. Some agents will at least say that, if I did not hear from them, they were not interested. I still wait and, after a hundred days, decide they will not respond like they said they wouldn’t.

A few magazine editors say the same (don’t wait for a response), although I do. Some editors say to query them if there is no response. I used to do that and I always received a nasty email to stop bothering them. They put in more effort to respond to me like that than it would have taken to send a form rejection.

I realize people can be overwhelmed with submissions, yet it does not take much to send, at least, a standard form rejection. Most editors and agents have assistants or interns reading the submissions, anyway.

I think, to not respond at all, shows a lack of respect for writers as if they are not worth a reply. When I record on my spreadsheet “no response” from an editor or agent, I tell myself to take them off future submission lists.

Of course, the editor or agent could have lost my story or query. And, I am not immune from making mistakes in my submissions. This is why I will probably send another submission contradicting any advice I might have just gave myself.